


Effigy

by cosmicmilktea



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Clones, Grief/Mourning, M/M, MAMA Era Powers (EXO), Music Video: Obsession (EXO), Obsession AU, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, X-EXO
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:34:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22614181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicmilktea/pseuds/cosmicmilktea
Summary: He's not Jongdae, but Baekhyun thinks every one of his friends is too broken to care anymore.He'd like to think that he's not past that point yet.
Relationships: Byun Baekhyun/Kim Jongdae | Chen
Comments: 25
Kudos: 126





	Effigy

Baekhyun was somewhere else when it happened. 

He heard it through his comms, through gunfire and static and Junmyeon's broken voice, and remembers thinking _he should have been there too_. Not because he could have saved Jongdae, no - Baekhyun knows how it works, knows that Jongdae had signed his death warrant once he did what he did. 

Baekhyun should have been there so he could die together with Jongdae. 

He came back to an eerily silent base - Rescued civilians huddling together with their own men, none wanting to look him in the eye. Chanyeol is nowhere to be seen, angry scorch marks along the hall still warm to the touch, while their two youngest lock in a tight embrace on the corner of their command room.

And Junmyeon - 

Junmyeon fell into Baekhyun's arms, quiet yet violent sobs wracking the whole of his leader's body, hands grasping blindly at him, as if he's afraid that Baekhyun too, would somehow disappear along with his beloved. 

Baekhyun remembers the feeling of detachment, remembers telling himself that he cannot break, that he has to take care of everyone now, now that Jongdae is gone. 

Minseok comes back to the base days later, face sunken and pale, eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot. Their eldest doesn't say anything, just tosses his gears into the ground and goes straight to Junmyeon, arm already swinging before Baekhyun registers what's happening. 

Later, Baekhyun remembers thinking that the saddest part is how Junmyeon just _takes_ it - Eyes already closing even before Minseok's fist connects with his face. They both sprawl to the ground and Baekhyun finally moves, a second too late, but enough to grasp Minseok's other upraised hand. 

"Hyung" Baekhyun says, even as the older man struggles inside his hold. Baekhyun might be taller and broader, but Minseok is not one of their best fighters for nothing "Hyung, don't - This isn't, this isn't what Dae would have wanted"

Minseok's gaze turns to him - Eyes wild and muscles taut beneath his hands, and Baekhyun tries not to flinch at his next words "You know what Jongdae would have wanted? He would have wanted to be _alive_ "

Baekhyun wants to reply, wants to tell Jongdae, wherever he is right now, that he _tried_ , tried so hard to hold everything, everyone together. But he's not Jongdae, doesn't - would never have his gentleness nor his strength, and he is struck silent even as Minseok wrenches himself free of his grasp, even as Junmyeon curls into himself on the cold, concrete floor.

"Come on, hyung" He says, coaxing Junmyeon into his embrace again "You know Minseok hyung didn't mean it"

"He probably should" Junmyeon laughs, chokes, mirthless and wrecked "I should have done something, Baekhyun-ah. I'm your leader, I was supposed to protect all of you"

Baekhyun doesn't know what to say to that - Doesn't dare open his own mouth, too afraid that however unfairly, he might agree. Instead, he hugs Junmyeon as tightly as he could, telling Jongdae, wherever he is, that he's trying, failing, that he can't do this without him. 

Baekhyun knew that things would change, afterwards. But he did not expect it to change so drastically when Yixing's screen, which has been blank for months, suddenly sputters to life. 

"Jongdae knew" Yixing says, without preamble, hard and hoarse and nothing like the soft murmurs Baekhyun remembers from their days of fighting together. Baekhyun almost can't recognise the older man now - His face all harsh angles and cheekbones too sharp, dark circles too deep under his eyes "Jongdae knew what the Capitol was doing, and that's why they let him be collateral in your last mission"

"Hyung, what are you saying?" 

The seven of them - Six huddled around the monitors that used to be Jongdae's, Kyungsoo watching from his own monitor wherever he is right now, listens with mounting dread as Yixing recounts what exactly have been happening in the Outer Reaches - How The Capitol has been bleeding the planet dry through their facilities, rendering the land outside of the Inner Cities into bleak wastelands. How their powers are what have been helping The Capitol do that, and how their doubles were cloned off them to double the effort before they broke free of the Capitol's control.

"That's why it was fine for The Capitol to lose Jongdae, because they already have each of you six's genetic materials. Jongdae had suspected this for some time, and warned us-" Yixing's eyes sweeps the room from his monitor, indicating Kyungsoo and Minseok with him, with a sharp look at their eldest "-Not to answer back to the Capitol for anything"

"We can't stay" It's Sehun who finally breaks the silence, their youngest's placid face a slowly crumbling mask, hands gripping Minseok's arm like a lifeline "We can't let them get Minseok hyung or you two either"

"Where would we go?" Chanyeol whispers, hoarse and timid and so unlike him that Baekhyun wants to break into fresh tears right then and there. Oh but he knows the answer to that question, knows it too well as he looks at Yixing's screen - The older man's silence almost expectant. Baekhyun acquiesces. 

"The clones" 

Chanyeol's eyes widens, head turning sharply his way "They're the only one fighting the Capitol and making any significant dent"

"But how do we get a hold of them?" Jongin muses "Do we wait for their next attack?"

Kyungsoo, who has been silent throughout the whole exchange, finally speaks up from his monitor.

"I can arrange some things"

Over encrypted transmissions, Kyungsoo patches up Junmyeon and his double as the leaders of their respective little group. Suho, he calls himself - _Protector_. While Baekhyun scoffs a little at first, he soon understands the moniker because Suho _is_ a protector. Over one hectic week, they find out just how much destruction and suffering The Capitol has really been doing in the Outer Reaches - and howtheir doubles had eked out what shelter and safety they could for the people unfortunate enough to live in the wastelands of the Outer Reaches.

Baekhyun thinks he forgets, sometimes, after so long behind the Inner City's walls. How bleak and dangerous life could be out there. But there are people out there too, Jongdae always said. There are more outside these walls, outside the Capitol's promises of a better world, outside the adoring masses who hail the nine of them as heroes. The people out there are our people too.

Jongdae died for that belief. Baekhyun supposes that clones or not, he can respect their doubles for fighting for the same thing.

There is little to pack, when the time comes for them to go. 

What Baekhyun brings are mostly Jongdae's, the other a much more sentimental sort than Baekhyun ever was. Carefully-folded photographs of their training days, a notebook filled with Jongdae's neat, scrawly handwritings, a necklace Jongdae gave him once - 

_"It's nothing much, but see how it catches the light this way? It reminds me of you"_

\- And it should be a little sad, that his whole life fits inside one sturdy backpack. But Baekhyun doesn't think he has the capacity to care anymore, as he takes one last look at his quarters, empty and lifeless but for the memories of a smiling man, perched at the edge of his bed, hair mussed and smile curled up at the edges.

Baekhyun closes the door behind him. 

They march West, avoiding their usual patrol routes and any Capitol supply roads, until they reach their meeting point - an out of the way ruins of a Capitol outpost, the hollow walls providing enough shelter from the howling winds. 

Removed from the usual life and death situation, from all the fighting and the panic, meeting their doubles feels strange - Surreal, almost. Junmyeon and Suho both takes the first step, looking at each other in both wariness and fascination before they shake hands, and the tension lessens. 

Baekhyun knows that the clones are far from the cackling, deranged villains the Capital paints them to be. Every one of them have known this for some time - Known that their doubles are just that, people who are fighting for what they believe, the best they can. 

The fact that they wear their faces and harbours their memories, however, is something else entirely. 

Baekhyun tries not to look at the slim, red-clad figure to Suho's right, prays that he doesn't have to. He calls himself Chen - After the morning star, Suho says, proud and fond all at the same time - and Baekhyun remembers Junmyeon, always smiling at Jongdae in that very same way. _Such a good boy._

The similarities are gutting. 

Living with their doubles turns out to be less of a problem than what Baekhyun envisioned. For one, most of the time they're too preoccupied with missions and patrols - leaving the sprawling hexagon-shaped base that is now their shared home almost empty. And even when they do interact, their doubles are just that - People. Strangely familiar and almost unnaturally attuned to them, but people nevertheless. They joke, they bleed, they bitch about the cold weather and chafing body armours during patrols, and eventually Baekhyun gets used to it - These people who looks like his friends but are people in their own right. 

But Chen.

Chen, with his sinfully red garbs and his ever-present smile, the curl of his lips ever so slightly sharper than his Jongdae's. Chen, whose voice is silkier, smoother than his Jongdae's, but laughs the same way - Deep and bright and eyes thinning into crescent. Chen, who is just _there_ as Baekhyun watches, watches him glide through the shadowed corridors of their base, as he slips into the loose cracks between his friends that Jongdae left behind. 

Chen plays chess with Junmyeon and Suho - draping himself languidly over both men's shoulders - Junmyeon's tense and Suho's a relaxed slant. He flits back and forth between them, whispering encouragements and admonishments alike, his allegiances unclear but his smile gentle for both of them. 

Baekhyun watches them play sometimes, bathed by the reddish light of their common room's large bay window. They play after missions sometimes, gears still on and dust still settling on their skin, until the slopes of Junmyeon's shoulders gentles and eases, until he accepts that sometimes, some pieces are inevitably taken off the board. That it's not just him, but the opponent who decides this. 

Minseok treats Chen the same as he treated Jongdae, and it worries Baekhyun at first. Makes him wonder if something has finally broken inside their eldest with no way for him to patch it up. 

He shoehorns himself into missions with them, ignores the almost suffocating tightness in his chest every time he sees Chen, so he could _see._

Minseok treats Chen the same way he treated Jongdae, but not exactly. Baekhyun slowly sees this as their mission inches on, as Minseok freezes whole structures and destroys them with a flick of his wrist. There has always been anger inside his hyung, Baekhyun knows. Inside _all_ of them. But he remembers Jongdae and Minseok, the younger's hand always a steady, calm presence on the older's. How Jongdae tempers the storm inside Minseok, coaxes out smiles and calm with his own. 

Chen doesn't do that. 

"You don't have to worry about me, Baekhyun-ah" His hyung says afterwards, shorter and more curt than usual, but his smile familiar and genuine. 

Baekhyun feels another smile behind him, and doesn't look back. 

"Do I bother you?"

Baekhyun's head snaps up from the too familiar voice, the device on his hand narrowly missing a quick death on the concrete floors. He turns to see Chen, bright red silhouetted against the doorway of their garage space, mismatched eyes gazing at him beneath too-long lashes. 

Baekhyun wants to curse, the other man's calm presence feeling like an ambush. Wants to say yes, it bothers him that he is wearing the face of his best friend, the love of his life. But these people have opened their homes to them, have helped and fought by them when they could have easily turned against them, here in the inhospitable lands that is their turf. 

"What makes you think so?" So Baekhyun says, instead. 

"You don't talk to me, you know"

"Maybe we just don't have the time yet" Baekhyun shakes his head, knowing how weak his excuse sounds "I think we're all just a bit tired most of the time" 

"Next time, then" Chen smiles, the curl of his lips all different, all wrong on Jongdae's face and Baekhyun tries not to flinch, tries to hold his gaze before the other man nods and slips back into the infinite shadows of their base. 

Baekhyun is thankful for that, at the very least.

Chen lets Sehun and Jongin protect him. 

Baekhyun goes on more missions together with Chen, now that he knows he can handle it, and he sees how both their youngest falls into step behind the smaller man, flanking him together with their doubles. He sees Sehun weave blades of wind around Chen, sees Capitol soldiers slashed in and out of existence by Jongin's portals at the first inkling of even nearing him. 

He's seen Chen fight on his own. To say that he is a capable fighter would be a gross understatement - While Jongdae had been very efficient and controlled with his electricity, Chen is a lesson in ruthlessness and devastation. Every mission they go, Baekhyun is sure that Chen can actually do it alone.

But every mission they go together, he sees Chen hold back, lets the two taller men protect him, something achingly gentle in his normally sharp eyes as he reaches up, pats Jongin on the cheek and thanks Sehun afterwards. 

And then Chen would smirk, wrangles the two men before the three of them wanders off to raid Chanyeol's alcohol stash. Their two youngest always comes back with a small smile after those nights, calmer, more centered.

Baekhyun would thank Chen, if he could ever get the words out 

Chen gets Chanyeol to bicker with him. 

It was almost an expected sight, back in their old base. Sometimes, they joke that they can hear the two of them coming long before they actually see them when Chanyeol and Jongdae are together. Once, Baekhyun would have given over his whole ration of coveted fresh fruits for them to stop. He would have given anything to hear them now, here in the seemingly endless corridors of their new home, where Chanyeol just sits in their garage space, tinkering with old tech and smiling with only half of the fire that Baekhyun has always seen in him. 

It starts with light teasing, inane jabs about Chanyeol's ears and how Chen can probably make better fire with his electricity. Chanyeol retaliates in kind, digs at how impractical the other man's garbs are for the weather, how he probably has to shake off sand from his pants every damn day and just like that, Baekhyun sees the fire return. Chanyeol smiles more, eyes flashing with annoyance at Chen's sly grins, and one day Baekhyun walks in to Chanyeol laughing.

He doesn't realise how much he misses it until Chanyeol shoves him playfully for just standing there like a fool, throwing a lame insult about his hair that Baekhyun doesn't quite register. Behind Chanyeol, he sees Chen's smirk gentles.

Baekhyun wishes he can laugh along as freely.

Baekhyun finds out that Yixing has a screen of his own, up in Chen's comms tower. He walks in on Yixing's familiar voice while delivering satelite documents from a rebellion cell near the Wall, because everyone else is too injured or knackered to take the hike up the precarious steps.

"Oh, Baekhyun-ah" Yixing smiles at him from one of the larger monitors, even as Baekhyun freezes on the doorway, taken off guard. He gives a weak wave back. 

"Same time next week, then?" Yixing switches back his attention to Chen, who nods.

"Stay safe, ge" 

"I will, Ah-Chen" 

Baekhyun hands Chen his documents, the other man merely smiling serenely as he receives them, and all Baekhyun can think of is how Chen speaks to Yixing with the language of his homeland. 

Kyungsoo is wary of Chen when he finally arrives at their new base - almost hostile. While the other doubles steer clear of his wide-eyed glare and clipped words, Chen comes closer instead. Baekhyun sees Kyungsoo rebuff and oftentimes straight out ignores the other man countless times, until one day he just doesn't. 

Baekhyun walks in to laughter and general ruckus, trying to find something in the kitchens after a mission. He finds Kyungsoo watching over four of their doubles - Chanyeol, Kai, Sehun, and Chen respectively - as they each do their best to…cook a stew?

"Would you believe that all these times, no one here actually knows how to cook?" Kyungsoo deadpans, surprising Baekhyun. The younger man is staring at him now, calm in his heart-shaped smile as the four men around him starts to bicker. 

"Good thing you're here now" Chen winks beside him, and Kyungsoo's smile grows a fraction wider.

Baekhyun joins in their laughter before he excuses himself, not trusting himself to speak, because now even Kyungsoo is letting Chen into his life - this double - this clone, who wears his Jongdae's face and bears his gentleness and strength like it has always been his all along. 

He feels displaced, torn between laughing or crying and never stopping, that all of them are now sharing this twisted form of Jongdae between them and that it's the only thing holding them together - More than The Capitol, more than the cause, more than anything. 

He sleeps with an empty stomach that night. 

"Why won't you let him comfort you?" The familiar voice - _his own voice_ \- made Baekhyun stop in his tracks, and he turns to see Baëkhyun perched precariously on the wall behind him, snow-white hair glinting dull in the reddish moonlight.

Baekhyun's always tried to steer clear of his double - The other too docile, too quiet for his comfort - Eyes placid and devoid of any care for the world. And Baekhyun's not going to admit it to anyonw but he is afraid, afraid that that is how he'd end up - content to let the whole world burn around him as he watches on. 

He's seen his double around Chen, though. Seen the gentle touches they share, Chen's arms protective around the other's in battle, his normally composed eyes glinting dangerously whenever anyone dares get close to Baëkhyun. Baekhyun wonders too, whether both their double had what they had, if they share their beds at night, if they understand each other with merely a glance, if both would die for the other. Itches to know, to ask. 

"Why should I?" Baekhyun replies instead, trying, failing, to sound disinterested. His double tilts his head to the side, the gesture almost childlike were it not for his too-empty gaze. 

"Because you need it"

And what could Baekhyun say to that, really?

Baekhyun volunteers himself for missions after missions, gritting his teeth through injuries and soldiering on, his days blurring into one unfamiliar place and another, anything, anything to not see that flash of red suit on the periphery of his vision, the curve of Jongdae's smile all wrong. 

He knows he's running himself to the ground, knows all the symptoms, used to have Jongdae list it off for him when the other decides that Baekhyun needs a break and he wonders, wonders through the haze covering his vision, if he's just blatantly, hopelessly, hoping for that reprimand. For Jongdae to suddenly materialise beside him, wrap an arm around him and coax him to rest. 

Of course, it is Chen who welcomes him in the Hangar as he stumbles in from his latest mission - Silent but the lines of his shoulders tense, lips thinned into a straight line, and Baekhyun wants to laugh at how similar they are.

"Junmyeon wants you to know that Kai and Sehun will be replacing you for the mission to Elyxion"

Baekhyun stops, narrows his eyes at the other man "Did Junmyeon tell you to say that, or did you tell Junmyeon to say that for you?" 

"Does it matter? You need the rest"

Baekhyun scoffs, bleary eyes zeroing on Chen's impassive face, something inside him twisting tightly and forgetting to revert back "Or what? You going to punish me for insubordination?" He advances on the smaller man, hands shoving against Chen's chest before he registers what he's actually doing "Easy for you to do, huh, the way you have everyone wrapped around your pretty fingers? _Chen_?" He spits out the name like a curse, like an unholy thing he wishes he could see him as but can't, can't. 

"That's enough, Baekhyun" 

Cool fingers alight on the nape of his neck, a sharp jolt of pain, and then, darkness. 

Baekhyun wakes up to unfamiliar ceilings, only the dim glow of monitors blinking in and out of frequencies cluing him in to where he is. He tenses for a moment before he crumples back into the mattress beneath him, too tired to be angry, too tired to care. 

Something, _someone_ shifts beside him and Baekhyun opens his eyes again to Chen's face hovering above him. Cool, calloused fingers tracing his face gently, carefully, as if he's made of spun glass. 

"What are you so afraid of, Baekhyun?" 

The shadows all around them blurs the lines of Chen's face, makes him look younger, softer, and for a moment Baekhyun thinks he can almost pretend that it's his Jongdae. That everything is just one long, horrible dream and that he's waking up to Jongdae beside him, fingers gentle and smiling in the way that he knows is just for him - 

Except the smile above him is all wrong, wrong, wrong, and Baekhyun can't - 

"I'm afraid of you" Baekhyun whispers, hating how his voice trembles. Afraid of seeing Chen like Jongdae, of replacing Jongdae with him, of acknowledging that Jongdae is - "You're not him, but you also mean that he's gone, but if he's really gone - then" Baekhyun chokes, the tightness in his chest twisting, twisting and forgetting to revert back "Then what do I do?"

"You go on" Chen whispers back, fingers continuing their slow glide across Baekhyun's skin "You still have things to fight for, Byun Baekhyun"

"What if - What if I don't want to fight?" Tears slowly blur his vision, the knot in his chest unravelling the tiniest bit. 

"They - they left him. The people he protected all these times, all he wanted was to save everyone, but they left him" Baekhyun has watched the recordings of when it happened, read all the reports. Jongdae was left behind trying to save the people not evacuated by the Capitol - Not worth saving merely due to the fact that they were from the Outer Reaches. He's seen the grainy recordings, his Jongdae's arms tight around a baby, still trying, trying to calm everyone down, to give them the slightest spark of hope, before the explosion killed them all.  
Baekhyun doesn't have that kind of hope anymore. 

"Dae, my Jongdae died for them and for what? And if I fight, if I go on, then for what?"

The other man is silent for a while, only his fingers working, almost methodically across Baekhyun's hair, and then :

"Do you know why I fight, Baekhyun?"

He shakes his head slowly, watches Chen's eyes - his blue eyes a comforting distraction from Jongdae's black, black eyes beside it. 

"I fight because of Jongdae"

Baekhyun blinks against Chen's steady gaze "Because I lived his life. I lived all his memories, and I know why he wants a better world, knows why he wants you to live in a better world"  
"And you, us, we're the only ones left to finish this fight. Because he wants it so, so much and I want to make it come true"

And then, it's as if a dam has burst inside him, everything Baekhyun has kept tucked safely in the compartments of his heart, pulled back so far inside him so he can be fine, so he can go on, and he falls unto the other man - This man who wears his Jongdae's face and is so, so much like him.

"And I promise you this, Baekhyun. I'm no hero, so don't expect me to die for you"

Baekhyun laughs through his tears, glad, thankful, and only holds himself tighter against Chen. 

He wakes up with Chen's arms around him - familiar yet unfamiliar all at the same time, cool when Jongdae has always been warm, yet safe as only Jongdae has ever made him feel. And he knows Chen is not Jongdae, will never be Jongdae, but Chen has promised him that he won't die, that he will be with Baekhyun as he tries, and tries, and tries. 

And baekhyun knows that it will never be enough - But for this world, broken and fragmented as it is, perhaps, perhaps it is enough.

**Author's Note:**

> I guess this is _my_ own coping mechanism for all the things happening lately. Fandom can be nasty, so please take care, remember that your health comes first, and never be someone who might make others feel like fandom is an unsafe place. Hugs and love! <3


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